


Feathers and Fangs

by strifechaos



Series: Feather and Fangs [1]
Category: Battle Creek (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Courtship practices, Crime Scenes, F/M, Graphic Description of Corpses, M/M, Milt's secretary (Leila), Spoilers for season one, Tons of different mythology creatures, UST, Veela!Milt, Werewolf Culture, Werewolf Russ Agnew, Werewolf!Russ, Wingfic, Wings, boys being dense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-14
Updated: 2015-04-14
Packaged: 2018-03-22 20:27:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3742543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strifechaos/pseuds/strifechaos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Why don’t you go see what your doggie is up to, get out of the office for a bit and take him for his walkies, hmmm?” Before he can throw the bitch fit that Leila can see he’s building up, she drops the bait she knows for a fact he won’t be able to resist. “Claire called again with a murder case.”</p><p>Milt frowns in disapproval, his wings rustling at her condescending remarks about Russ being a ‘dog’ but he doesn’t correct her, again, aware she’s trying to get a rise out of him, instead he takes the notes from Claire’s call and swans out of their office, crossing the hallway to see if he can lure Russ into a new case with him.</p><p>---</p><p>Or that supernatural/mythical creature AU that no one asked for but wouldn't leave my brain for weeks until I finished it.</p><p>(Spoilers for all current episodes up to I think just 1.6 but we'll say 1.7 to be safe.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Feathers and Fangs

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: There is a pretty graphic description of a crime scene in this that might not be your cup of tea or a trigger for some people, so here is your warning.
> 
> A/N: Unbeta'd but this thing was relentless in getting written so now I'm sharing it with our fledgling fandom. Sorry for the mistakes. I started watching around 1.3, saw the scene where Russ is looking at all the wolf pictures by the kids and this idea was born -- I proceeded to marathon all the episodes, fell in love with these two stupid idiots, and I wrote casefic, boom!
> 
> Disclaimer: Clearly I don't own Battle Creek, I'm just having some fun.
> 
> This is going to be Part One of a series, hopefully there's some interest for it.

Leila twists in her office chair so that she can give Milt the full blast of her incredulous look. She might be his secretary but when the veela got like this it felt more like she’d become a mother. Her own wings twist in horror at the thought.

 

“You already follow after him like _you’re_ the puppy, Milt.”

 

The Agent drooped slightly, wings shifting defensively around him as he denied it, “That is not true.”

 

Though admittedly it wasn’t that far from the truth, the veela pulled his wings in tighter around his shoulders when Leila gave him an even more pitying look.

 

So Russell fascinated him. No matter what his flock-mate said, it wasn’t a big deal, it was just that being around someone that wasn’t drawn in by his veela allure was refreshing. The pheromone lowered inhibitions and made most people bend over backwards in order to impress or gain his favor, or with the very susceptible they’d blurt incredibly embarrassing statements.

 

And while Russell did blurt out some pretty outrageous statements, it was in order to actively taunt Milt, the shorter man went out of his way _blatantly_ to avoid the veela, even when it got him in hot water with his boss, not even criminals went out of their way to avoid Milt! During the several cases when Russ had been forced by circumstance (or Milt) to work with the Agent, the wily werewolf always managed to give Milt a hard time – about everything and anything he could possibly come up with. No matter how small, petty, childish or deliberately rude the issue was.

 

“He’s just different from the others, is all, Leila. It’s nice.”

 

Leila shook her head, curls spilling over her shoulder with the gesture as a biting smile took over her face. She got up from her desk and walked over towards Milt.“You just have a weird thing for rakish old guys.”

 

Milt frowned. “He’s not that old.”

 

Leila quirked an eyebrow at him and placed a hand on her hip, her wings fluttering in silent laughter at Milt. “You’re being ridiculous. He’s at least ten years your senior, minimum, and he looks like his face looks like a wrinkled old hag’s apple.”

 

Irritated and fighting the urge to show it, doing so was no doubt Leila’s entire point of riling him, but Milt had a hard time thinking how to phrase a defense for Russ’ appearance that wouldn’t make him sound like a twitterpated fledgling. Instead Milt pointedly reminded her, “Which of us is the one that dated an ogre last year?”

 

Leila scowled. “He had the longest tongue—“ Milt’s wings snapped up, halting his flock-mate from continuing, for which Milt was endlessly thankful. If he had to hear one more time about Peter’s unusually large tongue, Milt’s pretty sure it would turn him off sex for life.

 

“Yes, I remember you telling me. In detail. Several times. Even after I begged you to stop. Repeatedly.”

 

“Don’t get your briefs in a bunch just because you had to fall for the one yokel that’s not scrambling all over himself to be your new bestie or get into your pants.”

 

Milt didn’t deny that he was put out by the bitter detective’s immunity to his charm; Russ’ hate was sharp and jagged like a burr caught in Milt’s down feathers. He tried to remember that Leila was only giving him crap about the lupine detective because it was the fury’s idea of being supportive. He knew that ever since his demotion to Battle Creek he’d been more snappish than usual with her, despite Leila being the only member of Milt’s previous flock from Detroit that had also been relocated to Battle Creek. As a fury she didn’t put off any veela allure but as an attractive woman their office received quite the captive audience regardless. Milt tried to avoid the hungry stares by facing away from the glass walls and working on his tablet whenever possible. Though that technique tended to let Russ and by extension his partner, Fontanelle, escape to work on cases without him.

 

“Most werewolves in the bureau tended towards a higher susceptibility to veela pheromones,” Milt pointed out despondently, glancing over at Leila to catch her reaction.

 

Much to Milt’s surprise Russ had shown a stubborn immunity to the pheromones that Milt’s kind produced naturally, commonly referred to as veela allure. Once puberty was over, most veela were inured to the fawning their presence, or more accurately their pheromones, created in others but it was a reaction that Milt had often used to encourage people to work with him rather than against him.

 

Up until his demotion it had worked out fairly well for him, and then he’d been reassigned to Battle Creek and met Detective Agnew, who from Milt’s first statement Russ outright refused to be anything other than deliberately offensive and dogged in his pursuit of why Milt had been relocated to Battle Creek, like the entire city was his territory and Milt’s presence as an interloper offended him.

 

Leila rolled her eyes and returned back to her desk chair; perhaps the heels had been a bit much today.

 

“If the werewolf in question that you’re referencing from the bureau is McCullough, I wouldn’t waste your breath. She’d roll over for a halfway decent looking gremlin; you definitely shouldn’t use her as a measuring stick for an entire species’ reaction to veela pheromones.” Leila fanned out her wings, making a point of turning away from Milt and searching out any misplaced or mussed feathers.

 

Milt frowned, it wasn’t the answer he wanted but he hadn’t really asked the question he’d wanted to either. Still he takes his flock-mate’s feather preening gesture as what it’s intended, a silent rebuke that Leila was bored with the conversation and wanted to discuss something else.

 

With anyone from Battle Creek Milt would play up the Good Ole Boy routine, act like he was offended by her outright dismissal, but Leila knew him too well, and this wasn’t the first time they’d had this conversation. Since he’d met the Detective Squad of Battle Creek, specifically Russ, he’d tried to figure out why his pheromones didn’t affect the detective in any discernible way, though the fury had pointed out that Russell seemed sort of pissed all the time around him so maybe the allure just backfired.

 

Her point made Leila flicked her wings back into place and shot a glance to her friend to gauge his expression. “Why don’t you go see what your doggie is up to, get out of the office for a bit and take him for his walkies, hmmm?” Before he can throw the bitch fit that Leila can see he’s building up, she drops the bait she knows for a fact he won’t be able to resist. “Claire called again with a murder case.”

 

Milt frowns in disapproval, his wings rustling at her condescending remarks about Russ being a ‘dog’ but he doesn’t correct her, again, aware she’s trying to get a rise out of him, instead he takes the notes from Claire’s call and swans out of their office, crossing the hallway to see if he can lure Russ into a new case with him.

 

And if he just so happens to make sure that his wings are arranged in their most impressive of position, puffed up and spread out in a handsome trail, he’s only trying to put his best foot forward, besides it was only considered a courting gesture if both parties were aware.

 

\--

 

 

“Yes, Mrs. Seymour, it really is obscene how short his shorts are, uhuh, yeah, ok, well I’ll try and take care of that, you behave yourself, right. I’m sure I’ll hear from you tomorrow, Mrs. Seymour.” Russ rolled his eyes and reclines further in his office chair.

 

Mrs. Seymour had been calling since his second week on the job, and though the old ghost never altered her script too much with what she called to complain about, Russ figured it was doing his part to make sure she didn’t transmute into a poltergeist, by picking the phone up and listening to her complaints about Magnum P.I. every now and then. It was routine by now to listen to her, so Russ, while aggravated by her rambling, had relaxed his guard while he spoke with her about the incubus television actor’s obscenely short shorts.

 

“Most people don’t take time out of their day to spend on non-corporals.”

 

Russ clamored around in his chair, nearly falling out of it in his haste to face the FBI agent that had invaded his territory. Russ barely kept himself from flashing fang at the veela, more annoyed that the Agent had managed to sneak up on him today without any of his sense alerting him beforehand, Russ cursed loudly, he must be getting soft in his old age. He pointedly ignored the queasy feeling in his gut that he was missing something, an important clue, as to why or how the veela was able to invade his personal space; Russ stubbornly put it down as a bad reaction to the breakfast burrito he’d eaten this morning. Damn dirty street vendors and their delicious smelling meats, they smelled so good but they treated him so bad.

 

“I realize that it might seem like wasting valuable resources on spooks is below your pay-grade, but in case you haven’t noticed this isn’t Detroit. Murders don’t just pop out of the woodwork to make the day more exciting for you here in Battle Creek. Besides, she’s just a lonely old lady.” Russ growled at Milt, puffing up in an instinctive need to appear bigger. Milt didn’t say anything and though Russ would never admit it out loud, he was more unsettled by the unblinking stare of the veela than he wanted to let on. He licked his lips, looking to his partner’s desk to save face; not noticing how heated the veela’s gaze got at the flick of his tongue.

 

Unfortunately any support Russ was looking for from Font was useless; the kelpie hadn’t been at his desk all day. Russ was pretty sure he hadn’t seen the other man yet that morning, so it meant that Font was most likely suffering from another migraine and wouldn’t be in until that afternoon.

 

With the department being so shorthanded, his partner hadn’t had an opportunity to make it up to Goguac Lake for a restorative dip in a few months, a trip most kelpies made on a more weekly basis if they lived closer to any natural body of water. Spending a few hours in the water helped restore kelpies natural essence, in the same way that a good run or rut helped Russ clear his head, unfortunately the withdrawal from being away from the water was the source of his partner’s more debilitating headaches, which got worse unless he could use a medical blend of seaweed and marijuana to help ease the ache.  It meant that until the medication clear Font’s system, Russ would be on his own with Milt.

 

“Great, just great,” Russ grunted, rubbing a palm over his face.

 

Milt pursed his lips, tilting his head as he folded his arms across his chest, making a point not to ruffle his feathers in a show of annoyance at the werewolf’s antagonistic defensiveness when it came to him. He’d meant his comment as a compliment, most people _didn’t_ take any time to sooth ghosts, seeing the undead as part of the past and not worth their time, but since the detective’s automatic response was to take anything Milt said and spin it in the worst possible direction Russ didn’t take it as a compliment but as a criticism, typical Russ but today the reaction settled like grit in Milt’s wings.

 

The infuriating werewolf seemed to relish the chance to be contrary with Milt. Even indirectly.

 

“As it happened, Claire called with a homicide up at Miller College, and I came over to see if you’d be available to help me out today,” Milt baited.

 

Now all he had to do was wait out the detective’s instinctive desire to turn Milt down, Russ’ downright _feline_ curiosity wouldn’t allow him to pass up a murder investigation, not over something as petty as his dislike of Milt, it was a weakness the veela planned to use to his advantage as often as possible.

 

Milt loved his job, he’d been happier when it hadn’t relocated him to the slow town of Battle Creek but the job itself was the same and the only thing better than solving a case was doing it with someone who was just as passionate about justice as he was – it had been a pleasant twist that the dour detective he’d sought as his partner was even more driven to solving mysteries than Milt. Part of the reason Milt kept so buttoned up about his own transfer to Battle Creek with Russ was because he knew it dragged against Russ’ need to know, and if it kept the detective’s attention on Milt and not the fairy Office Manager, it was all the better.

 

The manipulation of Russ’ curiosity worked out, Milt could see the angry capitulation in Russ’ stance, but it fanned Milt’s own curiosity as to why his allure didn’t affect Russ, veela didn’t need to manipulate people into spending time with them, they were naturally drawn to them. That this werewolf managed to maintain a stubborn disregard toward Milt was novel, and had the affect of drawing Milt’s own attention like a harpy to a flame.

 

It’s why Milt preens when Russ finally agrees about working with him for the case, why his feathers rustle and he can barely keep his smirk in check as Russ scowls and follows him out of the office.

 

 --

 

Milt takes a sidelong glance at Russ as he drives, the other man had been utterly silent since they’d left the Detective Squad, but the veela was sure that with a little prodding he could get the other man riled up and ranting. Most of the time he didn’t even deliberately do anything and it set the werewolf off.

 

 “So do you often talk to ghosts because you’re lonely, Russ?”

 

As expected Milt’s statement caused Russ’ hackles to flare up, the detective even flashed some fang at Milt. So he’d hit a soft spot. Interesting.

 

 “I think you’re mistaking what it means to be a lone wolf, Feathers.” Russ deflected, fighting down the itch to do more than just bare his teeth at the FBI agent, a nip or two would bring him down a few pegs, Russ’ mouth salivated at the idea but he held himself back. Milt for some unknown, no doubt twisted reason, thrived on being the center of attention but playing it off like he had no idea why other people would constantly fall all over themselves to have him smile at them. Russ refused to make an ass out of himself for Milt’s amusement, and someone not playing by his bullshit game rules meant that instead Milt poked and prodded at Russ like he was an insect beneath a microscope or some sort of lab experiment gone wrong. And because everyone else was so in love with the guy they completely failed to see what a twisted asshole he was.

 

 _‘Well Feather Brain is going to be in for a rude awakening; because this wolf ain’t gonna break!_ ’

 

Besides the Floss case had already caused Russ’ ego to take enough shots for a good while. When Holly had shown up at his den, pleading for help he knew he’d have to turn to the Agent to help his pack-mate out. Russ was aware that younger fairies like Holly were vulnerable to strong emotions, should have kept that in mind when he’d sent the beaten naiad wife to give the insurance papers to Holly, but he hadn’t considered her a suspect at the time and the woman had played on Holly’s fae nature to get her troll husband’s wedding ring back like a pro.

 

Russ was an asshole, no doubt about it, but that didn’t mean he was going to let a pack-mate get fired over bending a rule, especially as it hadn’t negatively impacted the case, even if that meant manning up and going to beg the Agent for an assist.

 

Though Russ’ gut still burned, pride rankled when Milt had hired him as a “consultant” for the FBI – and for a dollar! Russ might not have all the fancy doodads and be ridiculously perfect like Milt but he was worth way more than a buck! And the Agent’s disgusting superior smirk while he’d held the bill out made Russ flash fang just thinking about it.

 

And now the fucker was trying to imply that Russ was a loser just because he answered the phone for crazy, old Mrs. Seymour? Fuck him.

 

“Taken like that, it sounds an awful lot like a wolf that’s lonely.” Milt frowned.

 

Russ scowled, lip curling up at the Agent’s jab, though refused to rise to the bait and instead stared pointedly out to the window of Milt’s big fancy ass car until they pulled up to the Miller College.

 

\--

 

Officer Howlet showed them to the scene of the crime, where there were a few other officers milling around and a campus police officer --- a rather stout gremlin, were standing outside the perimeter of the gruesome scene. The body of a young woman was sprawled out across the thirty-five yard line of the college’s football field. Each of her limbs had been pinned down by stakes and her face was partially caved in. She was clothed but the scene was drenched in her blood, the grotesque nature of the wounds was particularly upsetting given the age of the victim and how she was splayed out like a diagram.

 

“The campus police were the first on scene, Rick DeBloise was performing a routine circuit when he came across the body. Said he didn’t see anyone around the scene or hear anything suspicious during his shift.” Howlet explained, reading off his notepad.

 

“I don’t suppose you have any security cameras for this section of campus?” Milt asked, turning towards the gremlin.

 

The campus cop stepped forward, though up close Russ could see that the kid was literally green around the gills and by Russ’ estimate about two seconds away from blowing his breakfast all over the scene, but drawn in by Milt’s veela allure he struggled to answer the Agent’s question. Just as Rick opened his mouth to reply though he almost lost his battle to keep his stomach contents down, he hunched forward and covered his mouth with a warty hand to keep a reign on his reaction, it took him a bit to steady himself before trying again, instead of verbally replying to Milt he just miserably shook his head.

 

Milt held back the urge to sigh, with a smaller town he’d assumed that the crimes would be easier to solve but the lack of surveillance or reliable equipment led to quirkier investigations than he’d run back in Detroit. Strange, weird cases like the Mayor’s brother trying to shoot him, though the dwarves had worked it out in the end, or the brownie that had worked in housekeeping being so offended by a guest’s overly generous tip that she ruined all the shaman’s tools and tried to make a break for it.

 

 

Russ scowled at the gremlin, like he’d personally chosen not to set up surveillance in the area, and jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “If there’s nothing else, why don’t you get the hell outta here before you spoil my crime scene with your puke?”

 

Milt watched, unabashedly, while the gremlin scowled at Russ but didn’t attempt to back talk the werewolf; werewolves did have a certain dominating presence that most people could pick up on so it wasn’t a shock that Rick just booked it instead of picking a fight, at a pace that probably meant Russ had just saved the lab techs from sorting through the unpleasant addition of vomit.

 

Russ moved closer to the scene to take in the details, opening up his senses to what was in front of him. It was still early yet, so the student body was mostly still unconscious, no doubt sleeping off hangovers from the night before, but it at least meant that there was no crowd around the hastily taped off field to lollygag while they investigated. It also meant that the likelihood of finding a witness was nil, Russ mentioned as much to Milt but the younger man just frowned and nodded. Russ made a face but turned back to the job at hand.

 

He sniffed around the scene, he might not be trained like Cookie or Milt’s fancy pants “Agent” Fraser but his senses were more sensitive than the average human as were most beast supernatural beings, but with the victim’s blood drenching the field all his nose could pick up were rotting smell of death and a sickening punch of copper. It spoke of how long he’d been on the force that such scents didn’t overwhelm him anymore, but Russ just crouched down closer to the body, eyeing the cuts across the victim’s limbs; they were deep but smooth, almost uniform.

 

“Well it was definitely some sort of ritual. The murderer didn’t have any hesitation when they sliced the girl up, there’s no rough sawing or jagged marks --these weren’t made by claws, the killer must have had a blade they brought with them.” Russ got up and moved to the other side of the body.  “These wounds were meant for a bloodletting, but there wasn’t any collection taken,” he gestured to the sodden field, “So that’ll rule out any vamps, no way they’d douse primo blood like this all over the grass.” Milt grimaced but didn’t disagree, his own thoughts had run close to what Russ was diagnosing from the crime scene though he didn’t like to jump to conclusions without consulting the results from the lab first. He couldn’t deny that vampires wouldn’t have wasted the blood, and upon closer inspection the marks on the girl’s limbs were practically clinical.

 

 Russ got up from his couch, dusting off his hands. “Probably some wannabe magi thinking they’d get some power rush from sacrificing a classmate, or some stupid necromancer’s first attempt at reanimation gone wrong.”

 

Milt rustled his feathers, irritated by the way Russ constantly jumped to conclusions and even more irritated because he couldn’t find any fault with said conclusions this time. Not yet.

 

‘ _How does he connect the dots with so little?_ ’ Milt wasn’t sure if it grated more because it went against procedure to build a theory off of such little data and not waiting to see where the evidence pointed, or because for all the Detective Squad’s lack of funding and clownishly faulty equipment, Russ’ case closure rate was off the charts. Despite the detective’s many and varied faults, and Milt wasn’t blind to the fact that there were _a lot_ of faults, Russ could be petty, bitter, drop into a rant at the drop of a hat and was easily distracted by his co-workers, he almost always saw the negative in things, he broke laws in the pursuit of justice to a criminal degree and he was pig-headed about everything, but Russ got the job done, despite any obstacles that were in his way, even when they were things like The Law or Procedure.

 

Milt knew that he was excellent at his job as an FBI agent, but he couldn’t lie to himself, he’d considered whether he’d have a similar closure rate without the resources that came from working in the Bureau, and wasn’t positive that his skills would have been equal to the seasoned (and cantankerous) detective’s and it galled. That conclusion had led him to dragging out some of the more obscure tech toys that the Bureau had to offer.

 

“Who is she?” Milt turned towards the officer that had been first on scene, Howelt, though he made an effort to keep Russ in his line of sight. The man had odd ideas about crime scene protocols, a flash of Russ _licking_ a gun still fresh in Milt’s mind, for various reasons.

 

“The campus police aren’t sure who the girl is, if she’s even a student here or not, and given the nature of the attack they weren’t able to give any further information about the victim.”

 

Milt turned back towards the scene just in time to see Russ pawing through the victim’s pockets, without any gloves on.

 

He groaned, sliding his hand across his forehead in frustration, wings going slack in dismay before mantling.

 

 “Really, Russ? Could you just for once _not_ tamper with the scene? Leave the evidence uncontaminated?”

 

Russ scoffed, loudly, but otherwise showed no outward sign of having heard Milt’s complaint. He pulled out something from the back pocket and squinted.

 

“Looks like she was a student on campus here,” Russ says, tossing a dorm cardkey into an evidence bag before Milt started molting all over the scene.

 

\--

 

“So which dorm did our student live in?” Milt asked. He’d already looked at the card but it didn’t bear any inscription other than ‘Miller College’ with a blue background and three white trees. There wasn’t any proof that it was even their victim’s card, just that she had somehow come into possession of it. For all they knew the murderer could have placed it on the body after they finished the job.

 

“Gotta be in the Lewis dormitory,” Russ said, keeping an eye out as the student population started to wake up and rush to morning classes. A smarmy looking golem knocked right into Russ and then glared at the detective.

 

Russ warned, “Watch it, asschaps!”

 

Milt frowned, his brow crinkled and wings fidgeting but he didn’t scold the detective. “How could you know she’s from that dorm? There are no markings on her keycard other than the college insignia. She was dressed just like any one of these students or a young adult. Her fingerprints weren’t in any system.”

 

A smirk pulled at the right side of Russ’ mouth as he explained, enjoying that the normally put together Agent was irritated his tech hadn’t panned out when he’d tried to scan the card, “It’s the newest building on campus, the only one that uses keycards instead of the old fashion hardware key, and it’s a supe based building.” Russ licked his bottom lip and shrugged, “Norms don’t get sacrificed in the middles of finals week, Milt. Not unless they’ve pissed someone off an awful lot.”

 

“You don’t think getting her faced bashed in and being bled out on a football field constitutes as proof of having angered someone an ‘awful lot’, Russell?”

 

Russ scoffed and waved a hand dismissively at Milt as they headed towards the vic’s building.

\--

 

“So according to the school’s records, Riley Kole was a transfer student majoring in Witchcraft and studying in the Spell Weaving program under Professor Higgins.”

 

Russ scoffed, loudly. “A witch messing around with dark magic, probably got mixed up with the wrong coven and found herself being used in a spell gone bad.” He slapped his palm against his desk in concert with the last word; the loud slam startled both Niblet and Holly, the former spilled some of his coffee and the latter threw some sparks from her fingertips.

 

“Unlikely,” Milt interrupted, “Riley was top of her class in the Spell Weaving program, apparently it’s pretty prestigious placement within the college. In the past couple years it’s become a major draw for the underclassman, particularly with Professor Higgins leading it.”

 

Holly blurted, “I’ve heard really great things about the program from my Little!”

 

The squad turned to Holly with ranging puzzled looks on their faces, the fairy blushed at the sudden attention of the group, her cheeks turning rose and throwing off a few sparks.

 

“You’re little what?” Russ asked, squinting at the office manager, not quite sure what type of answer he was about it get. Sure fairies tended to be ‘littler’ than other supes but he’d never heard of one referring to them self as a ‘little’ before.

 

“My Little from my sorority,” Holly explained, flustered at the attention from the older werewolf.

 

Font, still a little foggy from his medication, goggled at the young fairy, “You were a member in a sorority?” Holly was a sweet girl, attractive but definitely not what Font would have classified as sorority material before today.

 

Holly bobbed her head up and down, “Yes, and my senior year I had a freshman that I mentored – she actually just graduated this past spring! She tried to apply for the Spell Weaving program her sophomore year but apparently it’s really difficult to get in.”

 

Font frowned and tilted his head slightly, changing his grip on his baseball bat as he spoke, “So we have a student that held a coveted position that was killed, say maybe by a fellow student that was turned down for the same spot?” He turned to look at Russ for confirmation on his theory.

 

“They figure the best way to open up a vacancy was to open up a couple veins and viola instant spot!” Russ finished, missing the way Holly grimaced at the crude theory.

 

Erin said, “We were able to speak with Mr. and Mrs. Kole to break the news to them about their daughter.” She bit her bottom lip before continuing tentatively. “It seems unlikely they were involved and they didn’t have much to add in way of leads. Riley mostly kept to herself and was pretty dedicated to her studies.”

 

Aaron added, “They did mention that there was some tension between Riley and her roommate, but we haven’t been able to get in contacts with her yet.”

 

Russ scowled. When he and Milt had shown up at the dorm the allusive roommate had been at class already. To top it off so far they hadn’t found any major leads or critical evidence from what they had gathered from the dorm, other than Riley was an extremely dedicated student and anal about her study materials.

 

Commander Guziewicz frowned at the overview but started to give out tasks to her squad.

 

“Funkhauser and Jacocks get in touch with the roommate –she can’t be in class all the time and currently she is our lead suspect. Niblet get in contact with the uniforms and canvas the area, this is a college campus not a nunnery someone was up late last night and heard something, caught a glimpse of our vic on their smart phone, and I want that evidence! Font I want you to dig into this girl’s past, find out what you can about her.”

 

 The commander rounded on Russell. “I want you and Milt out there talking with her professor, if this program is as renowned as everyone is saying then you could be right, someone might have thought it was worth killing over to takeover Riley’s position.”

 

\--

 

Erin smiled up at her partner as she came back from the school’s Registry office victoriously. “It seems like Riley’s roommate, Carrie Dobbs, just finished up her last class for the day. She should be back to their dorm shortly.”

 

Aaron grunted in acknowledgment and headed towards the victim’s building with the single-minded focus well known for in trolls, E trotted along behind him in the path he cleared through the student body. People didn’t move out of the way for a cupid but a troll was another story.

 

E was a little surprised by her partner’s silence so far, normally they spit balled ideas back and forth during a case, a good way to make sure they were on the same page but so far Aaron had been surprisingly quiet about his thoughts. Erin had personally seen him demolish at least two éclairs today before they’d left, so even for a  troll’s high caloric demands it still hadn’t been long enough for his reaction to be due to a drop in blood sugar, something was clearly on his mind and with Funkhauser if it wasn’t sweets it was “his sweet”.

 

“Are you still caught up on what the honeymoon will be like?”

 

Aaron shrugged his shoulders, licking his lips before nodding, a tad bashful. “Shaylene, she’s from a pretty prominent selkie line. Her mom has made it clear that there are certain expectations of her baby’s bride-groom.”

 

Erin tilted her head in his direction. “Expectations?”

 

Cupids were a pretty deft hand at seeing connections where other people didn’t, it helped with matchmaking and setting people up but the actual rituals that different species used to cement their commitments to one another often times baffled E. Cupids were pretty straightforward about what they expected out of a relationship, and a serious commitment wasn’t it. She’d picked up a few of the traditions from what her co-workers had let slip, like that werewolves mostly expected their partner to challenge them and that if they were serious a love bite around the neck was a signifier of a more permanent claim. Holly had gossiped over lunch about how fae pair bonding included a mystical tie between psyches, and that branding was pretty popular amongst vampires in the clan Font’s wife was from. Even so, she wasn’t familiar at all with what the mating expectations or trolls or selkies, though apparently selkies were pretty serious about their rites.

 

“You know, _expectations_ ,” he raised his eyebrows in a meaningful way, gesturing with hands to indicate _something_ , though Erin wasn’t quite sure what and Aaron’s gesture really didn’t illustrate anything, unless he was referencing a sex act. Cupid’s were good with love and matchmaking, but the actual physical act itself tended to fall more under succubus or incubus’ specialty, still, the possibilities of what he could be talking about made E’s mind race.

 

When the silence was becoming too stretched she offered, “Well I’m sure you’ll get the job done, buddy.” When that didn’t seem to be the correct response she gave him a punch in the shoulder to be comradely.

 

 Aaron grunted and let the subject drop. Shaylene wasn’t fond of him making any mention of their sex life, though he figured honeymoon traditions didn’t necessarily fall into that category when he was speaking in generalities and not specifics, still it was best to change the subject. His cupid co-worker didn’t have any solid advice on the subject, maybe one of the others would. Niblet and Font had both married outside their species too after all.

 

“So which room is Carrie in?”

 

\--

 

Russ stopped outside the professor’s office and he turned his face to give Milt a stern look.

 

“None of your ‘we are the world’ crap this time when we question the witness, we hit her hard and get our answers, got it?”

 

Confused as to where he’d pulled that line from, Milt mouthed ‘we are the world’ and gave the impatient detective an unimpressed look. He knew that certain targets needed more finessing than Russ generally had the patience to muster up, and that the werewolf’s short temper often bungled so he let it drop. “I think I’ve proven that I’m more than capable of interviewing a witness, but I’ll take your advice with the spirit unto which it was given, Detective.”

 

Russ snorted but didn’t fire back. He knocked on the professor’s door before opening it up.

 

“Professor Higgins, I’m Detective Russ Agnew from the BCPD, I’m here to ask you some questions about a student.”

 

A middle aged siren was sitting behind the desk in the office; she had a humidifier going full blast at her elbow and was dressed in a tank top and shorts in deference to keeping her scales moist. She gave a wan smile at both of them, showing more teeth when she became aware of Milt, terrifying in Russ opinion considering her teeth went down to a sharp needle point. Her scales brightened as she took the veela in, and Higgins gestured for them to take a seat, smoothing a webbed hand through her mane of hair.

 

“Yes of course, gentlemen, come right in,” she said, welcomingly, eyes fastened onto Milt.

 

Staged in front of her desk were two chairs, shaped like oversized clam shells, Russ sneered as he took a seat. Some supes took their origin stories to the extreme, decking out their homes and offices like some sort of modern fairy tale and he didn’t see the point, it wasn’t like he lived in a fucking cave or had pictures of full moons everywhere on his desk – even the Agent didn’t have a pretentious nest built into his office.

 

“Lovely chairs by the way, I’m impressed, most people don’t go out of their way to represent their cultural heritage nowadays.” Milt commented. The siren beamed at him, fluffing her hair again and Russ barely held a snort back, the Agent had that bland smile plastered on his face that Russ had taken to calling his Full of Shit Face.

 

Clearly, Russ had overestimated Milt’s sanity, and no doubt it was only a matter of days before feather brain and his fury flock-mate had some high tech nest built in their office so they could preen their feathers with a sonic screwdriver or something equally as ridiculous.

 

Russ held in the urge to punch Milt right in the face, he’d literally just told the Agent to be straightforward and the guy was already slinging bullshit about admiring clam shell chairs. Besides, what would the professor do next, add a kiddie pool so she could flap around between classes? Jesus Christ, it never ended with some people.

 

“So, which of my students is it that you’d like to speak about, Detective…?” Unsurprisingly her eyes were glued to Milt’s pretty boy face, and she completely shut out Russ; he huffed and used her distraction to look around the office, maybe he’d get lucky and spot some sign of foul play and they’d  be able to wrap this case up in one afternoon.

 

“Special Agent Milt Chamberlin, ma’am, with the FBI. I’m afraid we’re here to speak to you about Riley Kole.” Milt answered, he ducked his head down before he tilted his chin up to give her a little boy smile as he took out his pen and notebook, predictably she swooned. Russ resisted the urge to growl. Barely.

 

Showing more courtesy towards Russ’ short temper than usually, Milt continued his line of questioning instead of seeing how far he could push it with the professor before Russ shot off his mouth or flashed fang.

 

 “We were hoping you could tell us about her experience here at Miller College, specifically within your program.”

 

Higgins frowned, the scales on her shoulders rippled, “Riley? She’s been an exemplary student. I can’t imagine what she could have gotten into that would have the police in my office.”

 

Russ tapped the fingers of one hand against his chin before announcing, “Unfortunately it seems that Ms. Kole was into some pretty dark stuff, she was murdered last night.”

 

“Oh my!” Higgins gasped, her gills fluttering at her neck and her scales draining of color. “I… I can’t believe it! Who would want to kill her? I just spoke with Riley the yesterday. She had such potential!”

 

Russ frowned at the professor’s outburst; something about Higgins made his hackles rise, though Milt didn’t even twitch a wing or flick a feather. Showoff. The lack of response from the Agent was typical, keeping all those emotions and thoughts bottled up, Russ spent most of his time with the Agent trying to get a response without success and even when the veela did show emotion Russ doubt the authenticity of it. Regardless Higgins wouldn’t have the experience at hiding from a detective like Special Agent Robocop; Russ was going to get to the bottom of whatever secret she was hiding.

 

“What time did you last see her?” Russ asked, it was a good basic question and one that criminals underestimated since the police often used to trip people up with later when they proved their stories were a lie.

 

They still needed to build a timeline for the night of Riley’s murder and the Professor was the first person to admit to having spent any time with their victim that day. Meredith’s autopsy report was still unfinished, and Milt’s lab monkeys were working on getting any information from the trashed iPhone they’d found in her dorm but until they found some witnesses they were still piecing together Riley’s day. Niblet and the uniforms had spoken with the other teachers that Riley had class with that day but so far no one had seen her attending their lectures. Without any witness testimonies for evidence this was the first person they’d found who admitted to having spent time with Riley the day she was murdered.

 

Higgins took a few deep breaths, gathering herself together. “I… I believe it was around six p.m. that she left. She mentioned she had to meet up with her boyfriend. It was after my normal office hours.” She gestured to her door where it showed

 

 ‘Professor K. Higgins

Spell Crafting

Office Hours: M-W 1pm – 4pm’

 

“Did you often meet with students after hours, or just Riley?” Russ poked at a crab statue on her desk.

 

Higgins scowled, and swiped the statue out of his reach. “I’m don’t like what you’re implying Detective, I don’t normally stay after hours, I run a very prosperous program for the college, I don’t have time to answer silly questions  that students could pick up from their textbooks if they only bothered to read their assignments. I’m the Academic Counselor for over fifty students and it’s finals week, I’ve led three exam sessions alone today!”

 

She paused, visibly gathering herself together before she continued, “But Riley Kole was a bright star in my program – she came from a long line of spell weavers! That girl was revolutionizing how spells are created; of course I stayed behind to help her out. The grants she was bringing in alone would fund our program for the rest of the year!”

 

“Did Riley seem off at all to you, Professor? Stressed about anything?” Milt asked, leaning forward in his chair, careful to keep his wings in close to his body and in a professional configuration so as not to give away any opinions on what the teacher had to say, and in a bid to keep as much of the moist, humid air from creeping into his feathers as possible.

 

“I’ve put a lot of years into this program; students like Riley Kole were making it renowned in covens worldwide. It’s not easy being a front runner in such a tradition based industry, but the spells Riley wove in her grimoire were inspired.” Higgins smiled, gesturing with webbed hands as she spoke. “Not the usual trash that undergraduates hand in either, the level of spell Riley could create was better than most of what my doctorate candidates come up. That all her potential is gone…” The siren collapsed in on herself, shoulders falling forward and rubbing at her temples with two webbed fingers.  “What a nightmare.”

 

Russ rubbed a hand over his mouth, scratching at his stubble, he attempted to lean back nonchalantly in his clam chair before he pressed the professor. Instead he almost slipped out of the thing entirely and was barely able to keep himself from sprawling all over the office floor. He shot a dark look at Milt but the veela had a Butter-Wouldn’t-Melt-smile pasted on, though his wings had shuffled in a twitch of amusement at the werewolf’s plight. “So Riley was making the program, did she have any enemies? Other students that you’re aware of that were jealous?”

 

 “Enemies?” scoffed Higgins, swatting her hand through the air like the concept was an irritating fly. “This isn’t some sixteenth century witch trials, she didn’t have enemies. We’re an institution of learning here, detective!”

 

“What about competition?” Milt asked, “Being part of such an integral program and changing what we currently know about magic, surely there were some students that were rivals?” Higgins puffed up at the praise for her program but disappointedly didn’t give up any names, “Is there a chance that one of Riley’s fellow students attacked her in an effort to scare her, maybe take over her position within the program?”

 

“None of my students would harm Riley. Yes, this program is changing how we view spell weaving but it’s not a den of wolves – if you’ll forgive the saying,” she aimed at Russ though her tone and demeanor showed she was unapologetic for the slur, Russ scowled, “my students have been taught to work together to achieve more, not to tear one another down.”

 

“I’m sure that’s true, Professor Higgins, but do you think---“

 

“Kelsey, you can call me Kelsey, Agent Chamberlin.” Kelsey giggled. Russ didn’t growl but it was a near thing, Milt had a full grown _siren_ giggling like a teeny bopper meeting her idol.

 

The interview only went downhill from there.

\--

 

“So Carrie, what can you tell us about Riley?”

 

The brownie remained silent, lifting up her laundry and bringing it over to her dresser. She hadn’t said a peep since they’d announced the death of her roommate and Erin was starting to lose her patience. Maybe she’d talk a little freer if they dragged her down to the station to answer questions?

 

“There has to be something, you lived with her for two semesters!”

 

Carrie admitted, “There isn’t much to say about Riley. She was always scribbling in her grimoire creating spells and when she wasn’t working she was talking to her Academic Counselor.”

 

Aaron shared a glance with E, before he asked, “What would she talk to her about?”

 

Carrie collapsed on her bed with a grandiose sigh. “I don’t know, like everything!”

 

With the girl being so unhelpful, Erin decided to add a little pressure to her, she if she’d crack.

 

“Riley’s parents mentioned that there was some tension between the both of you.” E mentioned pointed.

 

Carrie waved her arms in the air and sat up abruptly, “Listen, Riley was a decent roommate. She was fine with my night hours, and always left me porridge and honey before she went to her morning classes.”

 

Aaron nodded in understanding; he knew he was lucky that Shaylene was willing to be accepting of his own troll based quirks, like his sweet tooth, “So if she was such a nice girl, going out of her way to help you out, why did she end up murdered, Carrie?”

 

“I never said she was a nice girl!” Carrie scowled, crossing her arms over her chest. “Riley could be a real bitch. Her classmates were next to useless and her prof was always riding her ass about looking at her grimoire. Riley said that Ursula expected twice as much from her as any other undergraduate.”

 

Erin perked up, sniffing a break on the horizon. “Ursula?”

 

Carrie smirked and nodded her head, tossing her mossy locks behind her shoulder. “Yeah, the old sea hag from The Little Mermaid? I guess it was a pretty common nickname for Higgins, since all the kids in the program had to sign up like non-disclosure commitments and like forfeit rights for what they developed in her program. It’s like super backwards; we’re allowed to keep any spells we come up with in my Hospitality courses. Like a girl from my program has this wicked awesome spell for keeping scones just the right temperature, I’d give my left arm for a peek at her grimoire but she’s a hag so chances are I’ll have to stick with the standard textbook supplied ones.” Carrie shrugged. E tried to nod commiseration but cupids passed their family spells down through generations not unlike hags, and the idea of letting someone get a  look at her family’s spell book made her want to take an arrow to someone’s eye.

 

The brownie signed flopped back down on her bunk. “Besides, if Riley got mixed up in something it was probably because of her ex.”

 

The detectives shared a look of exasperation.

 

“Her ex?” Aaron prodded.

 

“Yeah, Tommy, her ex-boyfriend. They broke up like a week ago or something.”

 

“Riley’s parents didn’t mention that she as seeing anyone.”

 

Carrie snorted. “Well duh! They were super strict about her dating someone that could help elevate her in the spell weaving world, they wanted to her to hook up with this weird warlock from back home, but Riley said he was a total douche canoe. Anyways, there’s no way they’d even consider letting her date Tommy, he’s a necromancer!”

 

\--

 

“Well that was a bust.” Russ said. There was something hinky with the professor but as soon as Milt’s allure got its hooks in her she was useless to question.

 

Russ leaned up against the wall outside Higgins’ building and watched as Milt shook out his wings before they walked to Milt’s car. Milt could feel how the joints were stiff from holding still throughout the interview, and gently redirecting the professor’s personal questions she’d directed towards him at the end. The humidifier she’d had going full blast hadn’t helped either; he spread his wings as far as he could in hopes of drying them out once they left the building. There wasn’t much sun today but there was a light breeze, he shook his contour and flight feathers out to help rid them of any condensation.

 

“I wouldn’t agree.”

 

“Yeah, color me surprised.” Russ snarked as he trudged over towards Milt and his stupid giant wings. Like the guy didn’t look like a fashion model enough already, with his wings outstretched he looked like some sort of modern day avenging angel. Ridiculous.

 

“Russ Agnew?”

 

Milt and Russ both looked up at the man calling Russ’ name, the detective’s face scrunched in a suspicious frown and Milt’s brow wrinkled. Milt hadn’t been in Battle Creek for long but no one they’d run into that knew Russ ever seemed happy to see the detective. The closest had been Meredith, the sprite corner, and if Milt were being generous and had a head injury he’d classify their relationship as mildly combative. The voice just now seemed elated in comparison.

 

“Randy? What are you doing _here_?” Russ looked thunderstruck, attention completely ripped away from Milt. That just wouldn’t do.

 

Randy’s smile widened, and he approached the two cops.

 

“It’s so unexpected to you again, pup!”

 

Now Milt looked thunderstruck. His wings flared at the unexpected pet name before he could tuck them back into his normal configuration, Russ shot him a death glare but Milt dismissed the unsaid threat, and took the opportunity to take in this man who was happy to see the grouchy werewolf.

 

Something about ‘Randy’ pinged his veela instincts, though with the bustling student body he was having a hard time pinning down what it was exactly, doubly so when Randy stepped into Russ’ personal space --- and the werewolf _let him_. He could feel his pinions bristling.

 

The man was in his late forties, maybe early fifties but still kept a trim build, he was taller than Russ but a vicious part of the veela pointed out that he was still shorter than Milt. Randy had short ash blonde hair and green eyes, striking features that Milt reluctantly admitted made the man rather handsome. There were no outward creature features to give away what the man’s species was but Milt felt it was unlikely that a norm would both know Russ and happen to be passing through a section of campus that was dedicated towards the supernatural. Plus he wasn’t reacting to Milt’s own base level allure either, so he was some sort of supe.

 

“I didn’t realize you’d come back to Battle Creek.” Russ said accusingly. Some of Milt’s anxiousness settled, the guy might be happy to see Russ but the detective was just as irritated by Randy as he was any criminal or person they came in contact with on the job.

 

Randy ducked his head and nodded, not taken aback by Russ’ tone in the least -- if anything the man seemed to enjoy it. “Yeah, I was as surprised as you but when my assignment was over and a position opened up back in Michigan I found I couldn’t turn it down.” He quirked one side of his mouth up, and leaned even further into Russ’ space. “We could get a drink later, maybe talk about your latest case---“

 

Tired of someone else in Russ’ personal space, and not liking where it seemed this particular conversation was headed, Milt cleared his throat, loudly, and stretched out his wings out, puffing up. Shocked, Randy took a step back at the unexpected motion.

 

Milt sent him a wide smile that would cause a nun to reconsider her vows and held out a hand to shake.

 

“Special Agent Milt Chamberlin, FBI. I’m Russ’ _partner_ , and you are?”

 

The blonde seemed at a loss of words by the interruption. “I uh of course, a pleasure to meet you Agent Chamberlin, I’m Randy Adler, I’m sure Russ has mentioned me,” Randy started, until Milt rudely and in a strangely out of character moment, interrupted him.

 

“No, not once,” still with a bright smile on his face, eyes crinkled up in the corners. He shifted his wings so they spread out further behind him, and if one happened to encircle Russ beneath its pillowy arch then it was just happenstance. Randy lost his smile at the gesture but didn’t back away like Milt had hoped he would. Russ, unsurprisingly, on the other hand was having none of it.

 

 “Right, this is getting weird. Randy, it was strange running into you. Milt, get back to the car, this case isn’t going to solve itself!” Russ ordered, hoping like hell this day would be over sooner rather than later, Milt was acting weirder than usual and Randy was near the top of the detective’s list of People to Avoid At All Costs.

 

\--

 

“So that was odd.” Milt prodded, he snuck a glance at Russ but the werewolf didn’t rise to the bait, staring moodily outside with the window down.

 

Milt was curious. Despite his better judgment and Leila’s scoffing looks, Milt often obsessed over whatever little nuggets he could get the angry detective to let slip, discovering more about Russell’s personal life had become Milt’s Battle Creek pass time.

 

If Milt hadn’t met Russ after his demotion, and had instead merely met Russ in passing during a case he wouldn’t have given the werewolf a second glance but Russ’ dogged mistrust of Milt was like a shot from a flare gun given that he’d used all his considerable charm when first meeting the detectives in the BC Detective Squad. People didn’t turn down a chance to spend time with a veela, especially not after the veela had shown a flicker of interest in the individual, Milt had expected Russ to warm up to him after he’d singled him out to partner with him on their first homicide. Instead Russ was as combative and if possible even more mistrustful of the Agent because he’d been selected. If Milt didn’t soar when faced with a challenge he might have given up but the banter between them acted more of a balm on Milt’s bruised ego since his demotion than he cared to admit, even when one of Russ’ prods scored too closely to the truth.

 

Despite the face he presented to the Detective Squad it had been quite the let down to be sent from the bustling city of Detroit down to the small town of Battle Creek. His career had been rocketing since he’d joined the bureau, and sure a few feathers were stepped on in the pursuit of justice but Milt hadn’t realized that it would lead to his relocation from his flock. It was difficult to survive without the support of the other members of his previous flock there to help buffet him up but since he’d taken the bullets meant for Kenny things had soured with his boss, and the ghoul hadn’t made a move to stop his relocation.

 

It had still been an unpleasant shock to arrive in this backward little town and be forced to assist the Detective Squad instead of working on FBI investigations. Russ’ taunting pokes and prods at Milt’s character, and the insinuations he made about Milt’s motivations kept the veela on his toes; it made him work at keeping the Good Ole Boy façade in place all the more, if for no other reason than it drove the werewolf’s hackles up, and when Russ flashed fang like he wanted to bite Milt’s head off it made Milt’s gut tighten and his spine to shiver. A dangerous game to play, enraging a beast supe, but Milt hardly ever found people that truly tested him.

 

Besides, he was curious despite his common sense telling him to leave it alone. Russ didn’t talk about his personal life, but given the way he obsessed over Holly’s coming and goings and doted on the younger woman, Milt knew he hadn’t been the only one to assume the older man had feelings for the Office Manager. Even Jacocks, a cupid, had trapped Russ into admitting to the possibility that he had sent the fairy roses while drunk.  As cupids were better at seeing possible romantic connections than other species, Milt had followed her lead, if she thought the signs that Russ was throwing off meant he was romantically inclined towards Holly, Milt couldn’t have been imagining things, but while Russ had been upset when Holly’s date had shown up but the next day he’d come in and acted like nothing had happened.

 

Milt supposed that it was possible that Russ had finally been able to trick him when he’d ‘revealed’ his feelings for Holly, it had been less the detective admitting something and more him letting Milt fill in the blanks. Russ had denied that he was in love with the fairy, but Milt had been distracted by his veela instincts’ devastation then he’d wanted to let on. He might have been interested in her but not as deeply invested as Jacocks or Milt had assumed.

 

Milt’s wings itched with the need to know who this Randy character was and why was he excited to see Russ when Russ was so annoyed by him?

 

Before he could rally another pointed comment, Russ spoke. “Higgins was hiding something.”

 

Milt frowned but allowed the change in subject, for now, though his wings rustled in a show of his displeasure.

 

“She could have just been shocked to realize her most promising student was brutally murdered.” Milt offered, ever the devil’s advocate. Russ was the top detective in the squad for a reason but the only way to remain on top of his game would be if he was challenged.

 

Russ sniffed. “Yeah, right. People like that don’t care about anyone but themselves.”

 

“That’s a rather myopic and sad view of the world, Russ. How did you come to that conclusion?”

 

“You sat in that chair just as long as me; those things should be rated as torture devices.”

 

Milt choked back the laugh that wanted to escape and gave Russ a stern look, an eyebrow cocked near his hairline. “She must be guilty of something because she had uncomfortable chairs in her office?”

 

“When they’re that uncomfortable uh yeah!” Milt rolled his eyes at this ridiculous man, feathers twitching from the spike of happiness that shot through him. This was why he’d wanted the man as his partner, he wouldn’t admit it but not many people looked for an honest reaction in a veela, just the reaction _they_ wanted. Russ’ pigheaded nature meant that he wouldn’t accept the overly naive answers Milt fed him when he was trying to get under his skin; Milt liked that Russ fought for the truth even when it wasn’t what he wanted but it still didn’t mean that he was going to let Russ off that easy when assigning blame to suspects.

 

“Do you have any _actual_ evidence, Detective Agnew?”

 

\--

 

“What were you able to get out of the roommate?”

 

Erin said, “There was quite a demand by Higgins for Riley to create spells, and there’s a policy in place within her program with Higgins getting proprietary rights over anything they produce. Plus the professor was in almost constant contact with her student, and looked at any progress Riley made in her grimoire almost daily.”

 

“Get me the phone records of the professor; let’s see just how often she was calling this girl.” The Commander ordered. “What else?”

 

“I wouldn’t put all my eggs in the professor’s basket just yet; apparently Ms. Kole had dated a practicing necromancer, Tommy Mills.” Aaron added.

 

Guziewicz made an expectant face at the troll, twisting her hand in a gesture for him to continue. “A perfectly legal practice if the proper guidelines are followed. What else do we know about Tommy Mills?”

 

“He has a few priors for unlawful practice of necromancer arts; he’s in the system for some petty stuff from when he was a kid. Currently lives off campus. According to Carrie Dobbs, Riley’s roommate, they had quite the epic breakup five days ago.”

 

“Well it seems like we’ve got two prime suspects. Let’s do some digging and see what else we can find out about these two and what might cause them to kill Miss Kole.”

 

\--

 

Job assignments handed out, the next step was Russ’ least favorite part of the job -- tracking leads down though paper trails. Things wouldn’t of been so bad but the computer system liked to load eighty-percent of the way and then crash when they least expected it. It meant that in order to track down the bad guys everyone had the technopath IT guy’s number memorized.

 

“Check it out!” Erin slapped a folder down on Russ’ desk, he quirked an eyebrow at the woman but obediently flipped open the folder and skimmed the papers inside.

 

“So it seems that we need to pay Riley’s ex a visit,” Erin proclaimed, not waiting for him to finish before snatching the report back and flashing it to Font.

 

Font’s forehead scrunched up in confusion. “What, why? I thought you and Funkhauser already talked to the guy and he had an alibi?”

 

“That was before we got the report from his earlier arrests. Plus look at the copy his TA sent us of his research paper on!”

 

The kelpie glanced at the report, flipping through the pages until he reached that section and attached pictures. The first photo showed almost an exact replica of their crime scene. A young woman was laid out in a field, staked down the ground with a single cut on each limb.

 

“Let’s bring this psycho in!” Russ crowed, jolting out of his chair and grabbing his service weapon.

 

\--

 

“For a bunch of detectives you sure are clueless.”

 

Russ scoffed. “There’s not much that we need a clue about in a sloppy case like this, you’re research project wasn’t going how you wanted. You were frustrated and angry and then to top it off a couple days after you present all your crazy research that you’ve been slaving over for months, your girlfriend wises up and dumps your crazy ass.” Russ clicks his tongue and shakes his head in mock pity.

 

“Sounds like the perfect storm for you to lose it and snap!”  Russ slammed a fist down on the table; the necromancer flinched violently, causing the lights in the room to flicker.

 

“I mean, necromancers, pfft not the most stable of magic users to start with! Toss in some heartache and rage and it’s no wonder you decided that your ex-girlfriend would make a good case study.”

 

“That’s not true!” Tommy wailed, he tore his gaze from Russ as the werewolf continued to prowl the around the room, he looked beseechingly at the FBI agent. “I could never do that to Riley!”

 

“Sure, that’s why she was murdered the exact what you’ve been studying how to murder people for the past year? Why don’t you explain that to me, huh, Tommy?” Russ perched on the table next to him, glaring down at the student.

 

“There’s no way I did it! I was in my dorm the whole night! Some crazy asshole is trying to frame me! I love Riley!”

 

“I guess it’s too bad for Riley she didn’t love you back or she might not have been part of your final project.”

 

“Riley did love me!” Black veins flashed up the perp’s arms, a testimony to his rising stress level. Milt’s wings mantled as a steely reminder to Tommy that he needed to calm his ass down right now. Taking the hint, Tommy took a few breaths before he continued, palms facing up and gaze begging the veela to believe him.

 

“She was just freaked out from all the pressure from Professor Higgins. The siren was constantly on her about everything, worse than a newly divorced pair of fae! She’d text Riley all the time about when she was adding spells to her grimoire, wanting updates on her progress. The lady needed to get laid and let Riley have a life!” Tommy made a chopping motion with one hand as he explained, “That siren broke up most of our dates because she’d call and demand that Riley get back to work on some project. Harpy fire, it’s no wonder Riley needed a break from the program!”

 

Seeing an opening Russ didn’t let up and pressed the kid further.

 

“So what, Riley dumped you because she had homework, that what she tell you, Tommy? She didn’t want to hurt your freaky feelings and tell you she didn’t want to spend any more time with a necro freak?”

 

Tommy turned red and glared. “I’m only minoring in Necromancy, I’m Pre-Med! I don’t want to kill people; I just want to save lives! There’s no way I could have done that to Riley. The only reason I have the picture in my paper is as an example to the extremes that people have gone to in order to practice the art of bringing people back from the dead. I would never practice something like that outside of the guidelines; I’m trying to be a healer!”

 

Milt admitted, “I believe that’s what you’re trying to do, Tommy. You loved Riley; you would never hurt her or anyone else.” Russ glared holy hellfire at the veela.

 

“Thank you.” Tommy sobbed. “There wouldn’t be a point in me harming Riley anyways, when we last spoke Riley told me she was leaving BCC for a semester. She couldn’t handle all the pressure to produce more and more spells. She needed a break, and she wasn’t sure if she’d be back. That’s why we broke up.”

 

“That’s a real nice story, Tommy. What it doesn’t explain is why all the evidence still points to you!” Russ shouted, kicking a chair. Tommy quailed back but didn’t answer.

 

The Commander opened the door to the interrogation room glared pointedly at the chair. Russ scowled but picked the chair back up. The harpy then waved Russ and Milt to come out.

 

“You both need to hear this.”

 

Milt got up from his seat and trailed out into the hallway, Russ glared at the suspect, forcing him to break eye contact first before he followed the Agent out.

 

The door was barely shut before the harpy dropped a bomb on their case.

 

“The kid’s telling the truth.”

 

Milt’s smile gleamed at Russ, but Russ ignored his smug face, balking at his boss’ news.

 

“There’s no way that little weirdo didn’t do it, the kid literally has a diagram of the crime scene in his research paper!”

 

The harpy shook her head, negating her top detective’s comment. “Calm down, Russ.”

 

Russ reluctantly took a breath in through his nose and through his mouth.

 

Satisfied, Guziewicz continued, “Niblet just got back Tommy’s phone record, his GPS shows him in his dorm room the entire night and before you say he could have left it behind, his roommate can vouch for his alibi. It wasn’t the kid.”

 

“Maybe they both did it. Leave their cells in their room and just went after her together.”

 

Milt said, “What would be his roommate’s motivation for killing Tommy’s girlfriend?”

 

“Ex-girlfriend,” Russ heatedly reminded him, “Tommy could have paid him or he could just be another death-freak, getting off on the power of the kill.”

 

Guziewicz cut in before the detective could continue, “As chilling as those thoughts are, Russ,” she gave him a pointed look, “both boys were playing some video game and skyping with multiple individuals, so they’re alibis for the time of the murder are solid.”

 

Russ drooped like a puppet with his strings cut.

 

“How can this even be possible?” He dragged both hands across his face in despair.

 

Milt patted him on the shoulder in consolation, surprised that the detective even allowed it. He cleared his throat and asked, “Do you want to tell him he’s free to go or did you want me to…” Milt trailed off as the werewolf growled and stormed out of the building. “I guess I will then.”

 

\--

 

“So the ex-boyfriend didn’t do it. That just leaves the shady professor.”

 

Font looked over and shrugged, willing to play ball. “The only alibi for her timeline is currently in our morgue.”

 

E pointed out. “That might be true, but it doesn’t exactly place a blade in her hand. What’d she do with the weapon? Why’d she sacrifice her in that manner? She’s a Master Level Spell caster – why wouldn’t she use magic to get the job done, it’d be cleaner and be way less conspicuous.”

 

She leaned against the empty desk near Font’s and waited for a rebuttal from the other detectives. Russ twisted his chair back and forth, thinking it over; Font twirled his baseball bat, deep in thought.

 

A clattering at their office door drew all three detective’s attention, as well as the rest of the office’s occupants. A short, redheaded young woman stood just inside the door, wavering in the doorjamb before she strode inside all the way.

 

“I… I’m Bonnie White, I’m here to … to offer a confession.”

 

Holly popped up from her desk and led the leprechaun further into the office. “Of course, come right here.” Niblet pulled a chair out next to his desk and waved the two of them over.

 

Skeptical, Russ asked, “What exactly did you do, steal a pot of gold?”

 

Ignoring the slur she shook her head and said, “I killed Riley Kole.”

 

Russ exchanged a gob smacked look with Font and E. “Sonuvabitch!”

 

\--

 

“We have a signed confession, Russell. Bonnie even has the timeline correct for what happened, she offered details that only the killer would know.” Milt said, face impassive. Russ scowled fiercely, as if the veela had created the evidence just to spite him.

 

“Yeah but why would she come in and just admit it? Why now? Why’d she wait to confess? Also, why did she pick this manner to kill her in? I mean leprechauns aren’t notoriously strong in magic outside of tricks and protection spells, where’d she get the mojo to pin down a girl that was leading her spell weaving program?” E asked, tapping her fingers against her desk.

 

“Who comes into a police station and just _confesses_ to a murder?” Russ groused.

 

Font said, “Bonnie White, apparently. Why are we looking a gift horse in the mouth here?”

 

“Because she’s not a gift horse she’s a Trojan one!” Russ spat, arms in the air and irritation scrawled across his face. He stormed out of the office.

 

Font exchanged a look with Erin. “Wasn’t that technically still a gift horse?”

 

\--

 

Leila barely held back her glee when Agnew stormed through the main antechamber of their office and straight into Milt’s personal office to ask him for help, well _demand_ Milt help him, but still. Milt looked about half a second away from wagging a non-existent tail at the prospect of the werewolf wanting his help, his wings were puffed up and extended, showing off the downy undersides and secondaries, not that a mutt like Agnew understood nuances of such a presentation by a winged supe.

                                                                         

Her flock-mate’s current expression overshadowed the downright puppyish enthusiasm Milt had shown last month when Holly had come over during the arson investigation and explained that “Russ asked for your help with the Commander’s case, Milt.”

 

Apparently, having the caustic detective ask for Milt’s help in person just flicked Milt’s switch, Agnew was babbling about questioning the girl that had confessed again, and Milt just nodded along, by this point he was so puffed up that he looked more like a ridiculous pigeon than a badass veela FBI agent; she was never going to let him live this down.

 

\--

 

Russ looked cross, arms folded over his chest and chin jutting out. “There’s no way that girl killed Riley.”

 

Guziewicz gave her detective a disbelieving look. “Are you referring to Bonnie White, the woman who came into our station of her own free will and confessed to having murdered Ms. Kole? With the exact method, in detail? That girl?”

 

“Where’s the murder weapon then, huh? Kid still hasn’t coughed up anything on where she stashed the blade. Besides – a leprechaun killing a witch? Maybe over a rainbow or pot of gold, but over some crappy spot in a school program, I don’t think so.” Russ said, waving his hands as he spoke and almost smacking Milt in the wings. They probably could have stood a little further apart, now that Russ noticed, but he turned his attention back to his boss as she started to speak.

 

“Be that as it may, Detective, I need more proof than her being a leprechaun.” The harpy stipulated.

 

“That’s why we need to integrate her, Guz!” Russ whined.

 

“I believe the Detective is right, Commander.”

 

“You do?” “You do?!”

 

“Yes,” Milt smiled.

 

The Commander wavered for a few more seconds before she gave a nod and the go ahead. “Alright, gentlemen, if you both think something is up with this confession go get our prisoner and find our evidence that she’s actually lying.”

 

\--

 

“Let’s hear it again, Bonnie – why’d you decide to kill your classmate?” Russ pushed, stalked back and forth around the integration room while Milt sat still as you please, hands and wings folded. Bonnie, already a small girl, seemed to shrink in on herself even further at the continual pressure from the detective; she tweaked a charm on her golden bracelet.

 

“I’ve already told you!” She growled. Russ flashed fang at the challenge and the leprechaun thudded back in her chair, fiddling with her charm bracelet again and avoiding eye contact with the beast supe.

 

“She deserved it, that bitch was always breaking the curve or taking up all Professor Higgins time! Riley wasn’t the only one who paid to go to school there and learn spell weaving!” The tone was right but the words range hollow, like lines from a play she’d rehearsed so many times they’d lost their meaning.

 

“So you decided to murder her?” Milt puzzled, hoping to get her to better explain her motivation. Good Cop Bad Cop wasn’t really his preferred method of integration but Russ practically oozed the technique from his pores.

 

“For the last time, yes!” Bonnie cried out, her left hand clenched around her bracelet so hard her nail beds leached of color but the motion seemed to steady her conviction.

 

“And you decided to dice her up on the football field because you’ve always wanted to be a ninja cheerleader growing up? That it, huh? You wanted to be Bonnie the Vampire Slayer?”

 

Bonnie gritted her teeth, fingers worrying at her charm bracelet as she tried to ignore the werewolf. “It doesn’t matter, all that matters is that I did it and I’m done answering your fucking questions about it!”

 

“Hah!” Russ brayed, he stopped pacing the room and turned to stare down the girl, “You think it’s gonna be that easy? We’re just gonna accept that you killed your classmate because she brought your GPA down a little?” He held his pointer finger and thumb apart a few inches to demonstrate the amount, “You’re gonna have to sell it a little better than that, Bonnie, cos I ain’t buying it.”

 

Bonnie looked flustered, skin clammy and wane, pupils dilated; she grasped for her wrist, rubbing the bracelet so roughly that red marks were left on her fair skin but the gesture seemed to steady the student some. Milt couldn’t ignore the connections popping up right in front of him.

 

“Bonnie, where’d you get that bracelet?”

 

Russ glanced at the piece of jewelry in question, it looked like the type of thing a leprechaun normally went for, shiny, gaudy and most importantly -- gold. He dismissed the question as typical Milt, trying to play Nice Guy but Bonnie’s reaction to the question however made him take a closer look at the jewelry.

 

“Fuck you, pig!” The tiny redhead bared her teeth at the veela. Milt just smiled placidly back. Russ is pretty sure his jaw just disconnected from his face.

 

“I know you’re innocent, Bonnie.”

 

Instead of placating the girl this statement sent her into a crazed overdrive, gnashing her teeth and pulling so hard at her bracelet she actually cut into her wrist.

 

“I killed her, it was me! Me! I killed Riley Kole! I tricked her into meeting me at the field, I pinned her down with a spell and I cut her open! She’s never gonna leave me now!”

 

“Where did it come from, Bonnie?”

 

With a ferocious yowl Bonnie lunged across the table.

 

\--

 

“You were right,  Russ,” Milt admitted. Russ cupped his hand to his ear and leaned closer to the Agent.

 

“I’m sorry, I must not have heard you, what did you say, Milt?”

 

Milt rolled his eyes and turned towards the Commander’s desk. “The lab results came back from the bracelet, it’s definitely part of a compulsion spell. The sorcerer at the hospital that’s working Bonnie’s case said that the spell woven into the bracelet was a pretty heavy compulsion but that it should degrade enough in a few weeks that she’ll be able to remember the events of that night.

 

“So she’s useless until our real murderer has already fled the country for a month, perfect!” Russ growled. Guz gave him the stare that meant she expected him to cool his ass down right this moment, Russ crossed his arms over his chest and took a deep breath, licking at his bottom lip and wishing he could come up with a solution to this mystery. Everywhere they turned their red hot leads turned into disappointing red herrings. Someone was leading them on a merry chase and the werewolf was determined to make them pay.

 

“You proved that girl’s innocence, Russ, that’s not something to overlook!” Milt simpered in that fake Leave It to Beaver voice that made Russ want to put his teeth to the Agent’s neck and just shake until he squealed. “She could have spent the rest of her life in jail; the sorcerer said if she’d remained in contact with that bracelet for much longer the compulsion would have been irreversible.” He looked at Russ with dewy eyes and Russ barely kept the instinct to flash fang at the veela in check.

 

Russ scoffed, rubbing at his head and looking away from the veela instead.

 

“Well clearly the next step is figuring out who is capable of creating such a compulsion and who would have the opportunity to place it on Ms. White,” Guziewicz said, gesturing for the two men to leave her office “This murder isn’t going to solve itself, gentlemen.”  


\--

 

Milt flicked through his notes at his desk. They were at a standstill in the case, no new evidence meant that they had to review what they had and come up with something new. A new angle.

 

When Russ burst into his office it was a relief.

 

“The professor!” Russ ducked back out of the office.

 

Milt felt his brow wrinkle in confusion. Before he could shout after the other man, he was back.

 

“Come on, Feathers! Go get your fancy ass car, and let’s go!” Russ ducked out of the door again.

 

“Russ! Russ! Wait, what are you talking about?”

 

The werewolf was gone. Milt sighed, ruffling his feathers before grabbing his coat, gun, badge and keys, and following after the detective. “Russ, wait up!”

 

\--

 

“How did you figure it out?”

 

Russ smirked obnoxiously, sprawling out in the passenger seat and sending Milt a dog-who-buried-the-bone look, Milt flushed and looked back towards the road.

 

“What you mean your fancy doo-dads and super tech labs couldn’t pinpoint the murderer?”

 

Milt made a pissy face but Russ’ smirk grew at Milt’s show of irritation, and Milt would be lying if he denied that the self-satisfied look on Russ face wasn’t had surprisingly striking, even if Milt did want to punch him in said face.

 

“Is this going to be a guessing game until we reach campus or are you going to explain your brilliant theory?”

 

Russ stretched out even further, jostling Milt’s wings and giving them a pat in apology. “Don’t get your pincushions in a bunch; the girl’s professor was responsible.”

 

“Kelsey?” Milt was a little dazed, people hit on him all the time but nobody except Leila touched his wings, and she only reached out in an effort to help him groom the hard to reach feathers along his spine. Also, Milt didn’t have an unreasonable crush on her.

 

Russ lost his smirk and instead scowled. “Higgins killed that girl in cold blood; you might not want to get too cozy with the murderer.”

 

Milt swallowed the urge to preen at the detective’s out of place spark of jealousy. Maybe it wasn’t quite so unreasonable.

 

“But why would Professor Higgins murder her leading student, she admitted herself that Riley was leading her program into international fame with covens around the world?”

 

“Yeah, except the professor failed to mention that the meeting she had with Riley the afternoon before she died was about the girl withdrawing from her program. The program that Higgins spent years building up and was just on the brink of receiving a shit ton of grants with the revolutionary spell weaving techniques that Riley was developing. Only Tommy wasn’t lying when he said that Riley was taking the semester off and might not be coming back.”

 

Milt thought over the evidence Russ presented, something niggling at him. “So Higgins murders her student, either to stop her from going to another college and sharing her techniques or because of the rage from her prized student abandoning her just when all her years of work were starting to pay off. That still doesn’t explain why Riley was murdered like in Tommy’s paper. Framing someone else would have taken forethought, calculation on her part.”

 

The werewolf smiled, showing more teeth than usual. “Aha, but that was the cincher. Guess who happened to be on the panel that reviewed Tommy’s paper AND was Bonnie White’s Academic Counselor?”

 

Like an unexpected updraft the puzzle pieces clicked into place. “Professor Higgins.”

 

“Correctamundo! Higgins killed Riley in a manner that she knew would point towards Riley’s boyfriend and when that didn’t stick -- enter Bonnie White, red herring number two!”

 

Milt nodded, seeing the puzzle pieces fall into place. “Professor Higgins meets up with her student, bespells her with a compulsion to confess to Riley Kole’s murder and releases her back into the world none the wiser.”

 

“Boom! Instant murderer, a great distraction from the fact that Higgins-- the scaly old fraud realized she had just lost her golden goose and snapped!”

 

“Congratulations, Russ, that’s really great detective work.” Milt sent him a blinding smile.

 

“Yeah, yeah, don’t try to pin this all on me,” Russ grouched, slinking down in the seat, “The whole department worked on solving the case; even you put in a couple OK ideas.” Milt smiled more naturally, wings buffering at the weak backhanded praise.

 

Milt pulled the car to a stop in the parking lot. “Ready to go catch the bad guy?”

 

Russ pulled the slide back on his gun, and smirked. “Only always.”

 

\--

 

Buckled into bulletproof vests and warded by the FBI’s warlock, they hustled into the building and up to the floor where Professor Higgins’ office was located. Guns at the ready, Milt held up a hand to count down busting open the door and rushing inside.

 

Only there was no Higgins present. Her TA, a woof nymph, however, shrieked and threw herself down on the ground.

 

“What the hell! Where’s Higgins?” barked Russ, the TA goggled at the detective, scared speechless. Milt crouched down and laid a hand on her shoulder. She focused on him and gawped.

 

“She—she already turned in her grades for the semester! She left early this morning.”

 

“Sonuvabitch!”

 

Milt holstered his run and reached a hand out to pat Russ on the shoulder. “Don’t worry; we’ll get the techs in the FBI’s to start locating her. She won’t be able to hide from us for long.”

 

\--

The memorial put together for Riley was surprisingly crowded given the statement Carrie had given about Riley’s lack of social life. Milt wondered if perhaps they should have questioned her again but Russ supplied the answer like it should have been obvious.

 

“It’s the free food, Feather Brain.” Russ explained. Milt frowned but didn’t argue against the nickname, he’d just opened his mouth to return the favor when his least favorite person popped up.

 

“Russ! It’s so great to keep running into you like this!” Randy’s enthusiasm was a tad misplaced in Milt’s opinion, given that they were only at the campus due to a murder investigation and currently were attending a memorial service for a young woman, but the blonde smiled intently at the older detective, completely ignoring Milt and Font.

 

“Riiight, hey Russ can I speak to you for a moment?” Font said pulling the werewolf towards a small table of refreshments before the senior detective could object, already the free food was being swarmed over by starving college students.

 

Randy turned towards Milt and smirked; he took a sip out of his solo cup and leaned into Milt’s space, eyeing his wings in a manner that made Milt distinctly uncomfortable. He twitched them back behind him, placing them in their least conspicuous position.

 

“So a veela huh?” Randy leered, acting as if it was difficult to place what type of supe Milt was, despite his obvious wing augmentation. “Russ always did have outlandish taste.”

 

“Excuse me?”

 

Randy threw back the rest of his drink, and reached for another from a passing student. As he brought the cup up, he must have cottoned on to Milt’s pinched expression the older man waved determinedly between them, like he could push the bad blood away if he tried hard enough.

 

“Of don’t get your feathers in a bunch, Chamberlin. I’m not saying I blame you, veela are quite vulnerable to a good screwing until they’ve bonded, and our Russell is quite the lay.”

 

Offended and trying not to insult the man unduly, Milt took a few steps back. “I think you’ve gotten the wrong impression, Mr. Adler.” He looked back into the crowd, hoping to catch a glimpse of Higgins and have a ready excuse to leave this odious man behind. Once again Milt’s crushingly bad luck stuck again and the siren remained hidden.

 

Oblivious, the older man just chuckled and sipped his drink. “Given the drives common to my kind, I’ve had my fair share of affairs, but Agnew was quite the adventure.” Milt gave the older man a cramped smile and searched for Russ and Font frantically, clearly Randy was an ex-lover of Russ’ and while Milt was fascinated by what details he could dig up on Russ’ life he did not like Randy or the caviler attitude he had about his past relationship with the detective.

 

Milt had been pleased when Font had pulled the werewolf away from his ex but now he was starting to wonder how to escape himself.

 

“I’d swear on a stack of Playboys that Agnew was part centaur if he didn’t have a knot the size of my fist!” Randy brandished said fist and gave Milt a seedy leer. Milt’s wings mantled, and he stepped forward towards the man.

 

“I really don’t think this is an appropriate conversation, Mr. Adler and I don’t think you’re showing Russell the respect he deserves by objectifying him.”

 

Randy ignored him and continued, drunker than Milt had first imagined. “I’m sure I don’t have to tell a pretty thing like you about it, if your Russ’ new partner I’m surprised he’s letting you walk around instead of busy screwing your brains out.”

 

Milt blushed. Where could he could a solo cup of his own? Or maybe half a dozen of them?

 

“That mutt ruts like a hellion, shit there were more than a few days where I had to call off going into the office while I recovered. But I can’t complain, I’ve never eaten so well what with all that passion and pent up aggression unleashed in such a primal manner.”

 

Milt was pretty sure his face was going to freeze in this horrified grimace and then Leila would give him endless hell about it; this was probably his karma for teasing the werewolf so much but he’d give his left wing if the two detectives would come back and put him out of his misery. This conversation was up there with when his mother had given him The Talk.

 

His wings were drawn down around his shoulders, enclosing him and hiding him from the view of most of the party goers.

 

And then something that Adler had said clicked into place, drawing the investigator out and reining the jealous veela back in. He flicked his wings back, drawn up as if ready for flight.

 

“Eaten so well?” Milt felt dumbfounded. There weren’t a lot of creatures that fed on others and even fewer that didn’t display an outward feature that would indicate their kind.

 

Randy laughed, boorishly and smacked Milt on the shoulder harder than was friendly. Milt’s wings ripple with the pent up urge to attack but Milt’s iron control forced him to paste a smile on his face, as his eyes searched out Russ and Font in the crowd once more.

 

“I’m sure I don’t have to expound upon the plus sides of an experienced lover to a veela! Russ might not be a young pup anymore but he also made my brain melt on a rather regular basis. Hell I thought for sure the noise complaints from the downstairs neighbors would get that horny mutt in trouble at work.”

 

Finally, just when Milt had decided he’d had enough and was going to turn tail and flee, leaving the detectives to find their own way back, Russ and Font returned much to Milt’s never ending relief.

 

Font even delivered an exit.

 

“We just spotted the Professor by the entrance, Jacocks and Funkhauser are closing in, let’s go!”

 

“Oh thank God!” Milt fled from the awkward conversation from hell and headed to where Font indicated. Font and Russ exchanged surprised looks at the uncharacteristic outburst.

 

Randy smirked, waved goodbye and downed another solo cup.

 

\--

 

Russ smirked at Milt from his desk chair; the veela had been flustered since whatever Randy had drunkenly confessed to him at the memorial. Knowing Randy, the guy had probably been offering the veela an invitation for a screw in the alley but the winged agent refused to admit what Randy had said. Russ typed idly at his report; sprawled out at best he could be in the god awful computer chairs the department had received when the mayor’s office had purchased new chairs four months ago. The rest of the bullpen was typing up the loose ends of the case before they called it a night.

 

 Milt tried to ignore the way the werewolf’s legs were splayed given Randy’s commentary about cock size and their apparently epic sexcapades. His wings shifted, curling around his shoulders and shielding him from Russ’ view somewhat.

 

The other detectives were milling around the squad, back already from their own assignments in wrapping up the case when Erin approached Milt.

 

“So did you really run into Russ’ ex Randy at the school?” Erin asked.

 

Milt reluctantly nodded, wings fidgeting unhappily. E raised an eyebrow at the motion but pursed her lips and didn’t comment on it, for which Milt was unbelievably grateful, though no doubt he’d be paying for it in spades later.

 

Niblet sipped at his coffee, “I thought for sure those two would pair bond.” Russ sputtered, leaning up from his relaxed position to glare at the hobgoblin.

 

Confused, Milt’s brow wrinkled up. It wasn’t common for a beast supe to refer to finding a mate as pair bonding; they tended to use a colloquialism like ‘claiming’. It meant that Russ’ ex wasn’t a beast supe, so clearly the man was comfortable dating other species.

 

Font shook his head and stepped in. “Russ was not going to ‘pair bond’ with Randy; the guy was a total sleaze.”

 

“Thank you!” Russ shouted, then paused and glared. “Hey! What the hell does that mean?! Are you questioning my taste you puffed up seahorse?”

 

Aaron nodded at Font, completely ignoring Russ and his outburst. “Yeah, even for an incubus that guy had a wandering eye and a way of over sharing that would put a gnome to shame.” He leaned back in his desk chair, pushing his paperwork away. “Shaylene would have my balls if I’d ever considered mentioning our sex life to someone else.”

 

Milt ruffled his wings; Russ’ ex was an incubus? That type of demon did derive a boost in energy when they ‘fed’ on their partner’s sexual energy, which explained the man’s earlier comment about eating well in relation to having sex with Russ. But given how private Russ was, and how willing he was to lie to get out of telling the truth about his past – it was worse than pulling teeth to get him to open up, Milt had to wonder just how serious he had to of been about this incubus if all of his co-workers were aware of the relationship.

 

“Come on guys, quit teasing. Russ was so broken up about it after they split!” Holly interjected, sending the werewolf in question a commiserating look, completely missing how instead of calming him it seemed to enrage the detective.

 

“Like a kicked puppy.” Niblet added, adjusting his glasses morosely and nodding his head in agreement with Holly.

 

Russ flashed fang at the group and growled threateningly, “I am not a dog!”

 

Erin laughed, not taking the werewolf’s actions as a threat or an indicator to stop teasing him, and instead smirked as she added her own two cents on the conversation.

 

 “I’d be sad too if I went from getting it on the regular to a full on dry spell, but even that legendary werewolf stamina must have been getting worn out by a sex demon!”

 

“Are incubus really that hungry for it?” Holly asked, biting her bottom lip. Her cheeks were sparking like faulty outlet, but she didn’t drop her gaze from the detectives’.

 

Russ stood up in a flurry. “What the hell? I thought this was a police station not a pre-teen sleepover where we braided each other’s hair and gossiped about who we ‘like-like’ or whether Johnny is gonna ask us to homecoming!”

 

“Why would a pre-teen be going to homecoming?” Font probed, baiting his friend further.

 

\--

 

Meredith arrived just in time to see Russ lose it, turning over a desk and ranting at his co-workers.

 

Commander Guziewicz was right on the sprite’s heels and shrieking at her detectives to settle back into work. Milt slipped out while the older harpy brought her workers back to what passed for sane in Battle Creek.

 

\--

 

Milt needed the soothing presence of his flock-mate given how stirred up Adler had made him, and while Guziewicz calmed her squad back down, Milt took the opportunity to word vomit the entire experience to Leila.

 

“There is no way that guy said that.” Leila shook her head, adamant.

 

People said a lot of weird stuff to Milt -- all the time in fact since reactions to veela pheromones could overwhelm the less sexually experienced into blurting out the first thing that popped into their head, it wasn’t uncommon for people to tell him just how attractive he was but a middle-aged incubus was about as far from sexually inexperienced as a supe could get.

 

“He did, he really, really did.” Milt’s wings drooped forlornly.

 

Leila quirked a carefully sculpted eyebrow and turned her chair to point back across the hall. “Maybe I was a tad harsh about your puppy crush, if he really is packing a horse dick in those ill-fitting suit pants.”

 

Milt flushed, scandalized. “Leila!”

 

She smirked and pushed at her flock-mate’s shoulder. “Oh come on, veela are practically the biggest size queens this side of the equator.”

 

Milt ignored her pointed look and picked at a feather that had been stubbornly poking out. “I wouldn’t say that veela as a whole would necessarily fit into such a statement.”

 

Leila rolled her eyes, “Yeah well you are one and since you’re the only veela I give two shits about my comment stands. Sweetie, your puppy has a big peen, congratulations. When are you gonna go take him for a spin and stop mopping around the office playing with your iPad when he doesn’t take you for walkies?”

 

“We just wrapped up a murder investigation.” Milt felt it was best point out the obvious; sometimes Leila ignored facts when they flew in the way of her desires.

 

“Well endorphins will be at an all time high, maybe your allure will finally kick in with him! Saddle up, cowboy and be safe!”

 

Milt made a pinched expression at the fury. “That’s really not how this works.”

 

Leila flicked her wings in dismissal. “Well whatever your plan for getting him to let you take a ride, maybe speed it up, huh?”

 

Milt looked over at the Detective Squad across the hall somewhat wistfully. They seemed to have finished for the night, everyone was putting on jackets and collecting their bags and stashing their phones and keys in their pockets. Milt watched as Holly approached Russ, a painful pang shooting through his chest, maybe he was having heartburn? The fairy said something, gesturing towards the FBI office; Russ scowled and shook his head but it looked like he eventually folded at the young fae’s stern expectant face because the next thing Milt saw was Russ headed his way.

 

Russ, dragging his feet, approached Milt’s office and Leila grinned; wings swishing with amusement, Milt sent her a mild warning look that she ignored. Russ opened the door and reluctantly walked in. Knowing his flock-mate, Milt gestured for Russ to join him in his personal office.

 

“So the Squad’s going out to celebrate closing the case,” Russ opened with, not quite meeting Milt’s eyes.

 

“That’s great!” Milt chirped, pretty sure that this is what developing an ulcer felt like, the werewolf was only over here because the woman he was in love with had forced him to come over and bring Milt along. “Is this an invitation, Russell?”

 

Russ snorted, “From them, yes.”

 

Milt hid his disappointment, poorly, “Oh.” His wings drooped along his back, brushing the floor despondently.

 

“But it’s been a long couple of days, so I was gonna head back to my place, put a game on and order a pizza, drink a couple beers… if you think you can stomach something that’s not up to your hoity toity standards –“

 

“Yes!”

 

Russ blinked at the sudden agreement; he rubbed his hand across his mouth and nodded, pointing at Milt with his middle and ring finger tucked against his palm. “Alight, but don’t get your feathers in a bunch because it’s cheap beer and greasy pizza, with loads of meat.”

 

Milt rolled his eyes. “I think I can handle your meat, Russ.”

 

He swanned out of the office, jacket and keys in hand, pretending not to notice the way Russ was choking on air at his comment, smirk hidden from the werewolf’s face.

\--

 

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End Part One

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**Author's Note:**

> So this left a couple threads unexplained, and I'm hoping to write at least another part in this series to help tie those up. I just watched this week's episode with Russ' mom and have so many ideas! Gah!


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